by Damon Hunter
Simms cursed himself for firing too quickly. He had managed to scoot himself on his ass on what he figured had to be record speed for such a thing and then rushed his shot. Normally a shot to center mass with a nine-millimeter slug has a good chance of putting a stop to whatever is coming, but the rotter was getting back up. He took his time on the next shot and put a bullet in between the rotter’s bulging bloodshot eyes.
He heard Dinkins call down, “Are you okay down there?”
“No,” Simms called back.
“Did it bite you?”
“No,” Simms answered, though he knew it was possible it had. He remembered how close the teeth were to his shoulder as they toppled over the balcony. He felt his shoulder; it was wet and sticky. He did not feel a bite, but the pain below his waist made anything else irrelevant.
“Can you move?” Dinkins called down.
“Not very fast,” Simms said as he checked for bubbles growing on his skin. He was thankful there were none. Maybe whatever he felt on his shoulder was not his own blood, or even if it was, it was not because the rotter had bitten him on the way down.
“We will come down to get you,” Dinkins said, thinking removing the stairs had been a mistake. They would have to go through the store and unlock the security gates to get him. He turned to Wilson. “Keep a look out while I go get Chen and the keys for downstairs.”
It did not take long for Dinkins to get the keys. Chen followed him down the staircase leading to the inside of the store, probably fearing he would steal something while he was down there.
Wilson stayed looking out in the streets while Dinkins and Chen started unlocking the doors. He did not have to watch long to see the amblers start to gather in the distance. Previously empty streets were filling up. Either the gunshots, the sound the vampire rotter had made, or both had alerted them and they were headed this way.
He turned to go tell Dinkins to hurry up and found himself face-to-face with an ambler. It must have been in the apartment with the two vampire rotters. He had been too busy watching the approaching horde to notice it come out onto the balcony. Before he could react, it sunk its teeth into his arm.
Chapter 11
Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA
Ana looked over and saw Katelin, lit only by the face of her newly charged phone, was awake and sitting up on the bed they were sharing.
Ana noticed that while looking at the phone, Katelin was holding one of her Glock pistols in the other hand.
Corrigan’s place was silent. On the floor she could see the TMRT woman sleeping soundly with a pillow and a blanket. Ana figured everyone else in the house was asleep too.
Seeing Katelin with the gun in her hand made Ana nervous. It was only hours ago she was pointing the same gun at her own head with every intention of ending her life.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Katelin looked up from her phone and shrugged. “More or less. I slept awhile and after I woke up I couldn’t get back to sleep. Did I wake you?”
“No. What are you doing?”
“Just looking online. Trying to see if any of my friends made it out.”
“Did they?”
“Some did, most didn’t, or they didn’t post anything if they did.”
“Are you going to post something?”
“I was, but I couldn’t think what to post. ‘OMG killed so many infected today and my dad came to visit today #Quarantine’ along with a picture of me with the hatchet and the Glocks seemed kind of inappropriate.”
“I know what you mean. I had the same thought.”
“I should probably try to get some more sleep. Tomorrow will probably suck too.”
“Maybe it won’t. Maybe your dad will get us out of here. Maybe while we were sleeping, he already figured out a way.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. He may be a great soldier, but what he is really good at is disappointing people. Trust me, it’s better to assume the worst.”
Ana looked at the gun again. “You’re not thinking about shooting yourself again, are you?”
Katelin looked at the weapon. “No, not tonight. You can go back to sleep. I’m going to do the same.”
Ana was not convinced, but when she lay her head down and closed her eyes, she could not help but to drift off.
Katelin watched her new friend—maybe her only friend—sleep for a while before taking a selfie with the gun. She posted it on Instagram with the hashtag Killer Kate. She turned off the phone and lay back, putting the gun down but keeping it well within reach. Soon she was asleep as well.
Chapter 12
Chen’s Liquor and Bait - Oceanside, CA
Mr. Wilson pulled away from the young man who just bit him and gave the ambler a shove. With some distance between them, he grabbed another piece of the staircase from the pile. This one was in better shape than the last one he used as a weapon. It stayed in one piece as he beat to death the ambler who bit him.
Mr. Wilson turned to see his wife standing on the balcony. The kid was right behind her. She was holding the axe they had taken from a downed firefighter who’d tried to help them when things first went bad.
Mr. Wilson was about to tell her she didn’t have to swing the axe, but he felt something on his shoulder. He reached around and touched it. The bubbling sore growing underneath his shirt burst when he touched it.
“You’d better go inside, kid,” he said to Gavin. “You don’t want to see this.”
The kid didn’t move.
Mrs. Wilson had not known he had followed her out. She turned to him and said, “Go inside. Now.”
Instead of going inside, Gavin pointed and said, “Look out.”
Mrs. Wilson spun around and raised the axe, but it was too late. Her husband was on her, sinking his rotten teeth into her shoulder. He pulled away with a mouthful of his wife’s blood as she fell to the ground.
He looked at Gavin with blood dripping down his chin, and Gavin did not have to be told to get inside this time. Mr. Wilson tripped over his downed wife as he reached for him, giving Gavin a chance to put some distance between him and the recently infected Wilsons. He ran inside and locked the door behind him.
Gavin watched them both get up and come to the door. He sprinted back into his room, pausing only to grab his tablet and the satchel he carried it around in. Once inside, he closed the door and hid under the bed. He put the satchel over his shoulder so if he had to make another quick getaway he would not leave his tablet behind.
It was not long before he did not feel safe under the bed. His thoughts turned to the fire escape just outside his window. He was crawling out from under the bed to go check if it was clear in the alley behind his home when the glass on his window broke A deformed hand reached inside.
Chapter 13
Chen’s Liquor and Bait - Oceanside, CA
When Dinkins came around the van, Officer Simms was not moving. His head was slumped over, so he could not see his face. What he could see was the bone sticking out of his left thigh and the way his right foot looked like someone put it on backward. There was lot of blood on his partner, and Dinkins wondered what other wounds the young cop had sustained. He said he hadn’t been bitten, but he clearly had some injuries beyond his mangled legs.
“Simms,” he called, but Simms did not respond.
When he got closer, Simms surprised him by looking up.
“I thought you were dead,” Dinkins said.
“Me too,” Simms replied. “The adrenaline is wearing off, and the pain is getting a bit much to take.”
“Yeah, I can see how it might,” Dinkins told him. “Let me get you inside, and then we can see what we can do. Maybe Chen has something for the pain.”
“I think this is a little beyond aspirin.”
“I was thinking more like a bottle of tequila,” Dinkins said as he got behind Simms and started dragging him toward the store.
“I could go for that. Mind if I smoke?” Simms asked between grunts and moans of pain as D
inkins pulled him around the van.
“I don’t care.”
“This may be my last one.”
“Why? You going to quit?”
“If I get lucky enough.”
Dinkins had no reply to that, and Simms lit one up as Mrs. Chen opened the door and let them in.
“I’m ready for that tequila,” Simms said as they pulled him into the liquor store.
Chen gave him her death stare, saying, “There is no smoking in my store.”
“Didn’t my partner tell you about the whole martial law thing? How about that tequila?”
“I’ll lock up,” Dinkins told Chen. “You go find him a bottle of tequila, something good. He’s earned it.”
“How about he earns it by paying cash money for it.”
“Just do it.”
“You smoke in my store and you steal from me while doing nothing about my husband’s murder?”
“What part of ‘just do it’ didn’t you understand?”
She wasn’t happy about it, but Mrs. Chen went to grab a bottle, and Dinkins pulled the security gate down and locked it. He could see the mass of amblers filling the street in front of him as he secured the last lock. He was glad they had the security gate and there were no more stairs outside.
He went to check on his partner. He saw Simms was lying on his back, a smoldering cigarette between his fingers.
Chen was standing next to him with a bottle of Hornitos Silver in her hand. She saw Dinkins looking at the bottle and said, “This is good, best value. Ask any bartender.”
Dinkins considered telling her to go get some Patrón but decided the Hornitos would do.
“He passed out,” Chen told him as if he could not see this for himself.
“I may need your help getting him up the stairs,” Dinkins said.
Chen gave him the death stare again and opened her mouth. Instead of arguing with Dinkins, she let out a shrill scream. He looked down to see Simms had rolled over and clamped his teeth onto her ankle.
Mrs. Chen smashed the bottle on Simms’s head, covering him and the floor in Hornitos Silver. Simms did not let go of her ankle. She started stabbing him in the back with the broken bottle, but he continued to hold tight, shaking his head violently as he tried to pull a chunk of Chen’s ankle loose.
Dinkins stepped forward with his nightstick drawn. Chen started stabbing Simms in the head instead of the back and he let go of her. She had been trying to pull away and was not ready when he let go. She fell to the ground next to him just as the dead Simms let the smoldering cigarette drop from his fingers into the puddle of tequila.
The blue flame spread quickly, and with the clear alcohol to help, Chen’s dress lit up like a torch. She tried to pat down the flames, but she had tequila on her arms from when she shattered the bottle, and soon her arms were burning as well.
“Roll,” Dinkins yelled as he approached her to help. He stopped when he saw the change in her eyes and the lesions forming on her face. Instead of rolling, she stood and came at Dinkins. Whatever pain the flames licking her body caused was secondary to the desire to sink her teeth into the uninfected police sergeant.
Dinkins jabbed the nightstick into her flaming chest to give himself space before swinging the heavy club at her head. He broke her jaw and knocked her back a few steps, but she kept coming, reaching for him with hands covered in blue fire.
He stepped to the side as she lunged for him. The rot and the fire made her slow and easy to avoid. He swept her legs with his nightstick as she went by, sending her face-first onto the tile floor.
Once she was down, he stomped on her head until he had her brains on his shoes. He found a fire extinguisher behind the counter and put both her and Simms out before the fire spread.
He looked outside to see a mass of the infected leaning on the security gate. He was confident in it earlier but was not so sure about it now. He decided he would feel better on the second floor and headed in that direction. When he reached the top of the stairs, he realized he left a gun with a bullet in it on the floor next to his dead partner. He was turning to go back when he saw a dead ambler lying across the balcony. Next to him was the axe Mrs. Wilson had used to save her and her husband from being rotter food back at the beach.
He knew something was wrong and looked up to see Mr. and Mrs. Wilson turn his way. Dinkins stepped forward and scooped up the axe. The infected Mrs. Wilson was a little sprier than her infected husband, and she reached him first.
Dinkins brought the axe down like he was splitting wood and sliced Mrs. Wilson’s head in two pieces all the way to her collarbone. She fell squirting blood from her neck like a fountain as Mr. Wilson came forward.
Dinkins swung the axe sideways this time and nearly decapitated Wilson. Even with his head hanging on a single piece of skin and flopped over so he was looking behind him upside down, Mr. Wilson kept coming forward.
Dinkins stepped to the side of the blind, basically headless ambler stumbling forward on what had to be pure instinct. When it was next to him, he gave the former Mr. Wilson a shove. Mr. Wilson went over the edge and bounced off the roof of the same van everyone else had hit before falling into the mass of amblers gathered below.
Dinkins looked down over the edge of the balcony and did not like what he saw. A mass of infected humanity had gathered at the front of Chen’s store. They sensed their prey was above them, and he saw them climbing on top of each other to get up to where Dinkins stood. It seemed a futile effort when he first saw them doing it, but like ants they kept climbing on top of each other, and the pile of the infected began to rise. It would not be long until they were up on the balcony with him.
He turned toward the stairway they had destroyed and saw the stack of humanity was making faster progress over there. The few pieces of stairway they had left was speeding the ascent of the amblers.
He hurried over and bashed the one who had pulled himself up with the flat side of the axe. It tumbled over the edge and rolled over climbing amblers all the way back to the pavement. Dinkins used the axe to chop off the arm of the one who had just started to pull himself up.
He moved to the door of Chen’s apartment, hoping maybe it would safer inside, but the kid, Gavin, was coming out, almost smacking Dinkins in the face with the door as he reached for the handle.
Gavin slammed the door shut and then used his key to lock it.
“You don’t want to do that,” Dinkins told him.
Gavin stepped to the window and pointed. Dinkins peered inside to see a vampire rotter standing in Chen’s living room.
“How?” he said.
“Fire escape,” Gavin told him.
Another rotter scaled the mass and made its way to the balcony. Dinkins stepped forward and kicked him back over before it could get too far.
Dinkins looked over to where the rail had broken and saw one had scaled enough of his fellow rotters to join them on the balcony.
“Get behind me,” Dinkins said to Gavin as he moved toward the ambler.
A swing of the axe later and a kick to its backside and another dead ambler was putting another dent on the roof of the van.
Dinkins knocked another one over when he felt Gavin tug on his shirt. He turned to see the boy pointing at the end of the balcony, where more infected had scaled the staircase and joined them. There were three of them on the balcony with more coming. He shifted Gavin so he was behind him again and split the skull of the nearest one with the axe. He kicked it back into the other two, giving them a little space.
He heard the kid scream and turned to see an ambler reaching through the guardrail and pulling Gavin to him. Dinkins grabbed the boy by the shirt. He pulled Gavin away from the teeth coming between the gap in the wood rail, but the ambler kept its grip on Gavin’s arm. Dinkins chopped the ambler’s hand off at the wrist with the axe.
Even with only one hand, the ambler was pulling himself up over the rail with his remaining until Dinkins drew his nightstick and bashed it across its bubbling face
. While he had been battling the amblers by the broken railing, more had made their way up by the staircase. He swung the axe and nightstick at the quickly approaching horde, giving himself some space, but half the balcony was filled with the infected.
Gavin stood behind him, trying without success to remove the dead hand on his arm. Dinkins put the nightstick away and scooped the boy up in his arm. They moved away from the approaching infected. Problem was, the only place they had to go was farther down the balcony. During the fight they had moved past the staircase to the ground floor and the open apartment.
They reached the end and Dinkins looked down. The horde on this side of the building was not as thick. There was still more than enough gathered below to make escape difficult even if they both managed to jump down without breaking something.
Gavin was still struggling with the dead hand and did not look up when Dinkins said, “Looks like we’re fucked, kid.”
Chapter 14
The TMRT Eastern Compound - Escondido, CA
Barrington moved through the briefing as quickly as he could. Even if he did not want to get a message to Vance, he was tired of talking to Thompson’s team. There was little joy to be had recounting what had turned into a massive personal failure.
None of Thompson’s people offered much sympathy. It was quite the opposite; they reveled in Barrington’s failures. They saw an opening at the top of the chain of command. When Barrington had to step down, everyone else would get to take a step up.
Still, he had no choice but to sit there and answer questions. Fact was, if Thompson could get something done and keep the rot in check, somehow Barrington did not mind being the fall guy. He had accomplished enough in his career to satisfy his ego. To him it was about getting the job done, and if it took someone else, he was fine with it.
He was preparing to answer another question—this one, like most of them, just a person rephrasing a request for Barrington to explain how bad the evacuation had been fucked up—when one of Thompson’s team’s phone began to buzz.
